As a photojournalist who gathers the news of the day, I have come across just about every kind of story, and every kind of person you can imagine. As a photojournalist who works in TV news, it is incumbent and intrinsic that I capture and broadcast the human emotions that accompany them. Unfortunately, most of the time the story I gather does not register very noticeably on the emotional richter scale. Those stories mostly serve to educate the viewer. Conversely, when the story is a natural disaster, a fire, a shooting, or a fatal car wreck, then we're dealing with the most difficult kind to witness, let alone document.

Recently, however, I have had the great fortune to document a relatively new franchise to WGHP. We call it "Pay it Forward". As the title suggests, someone benefits from someone else's act. With the financial help from a sponsor, our station solicits people to recommend someone in the community, who is unrelated to them, who has fallen on hard times, yet carries on through life, giving as if nothing is wrong on the home front. The station gives the nominator $400 in cash, and, with our cameras in tow, they give it to their surprised nominee. Of course the plug is pulled on the emotional dike as the receiver realizes they've just been given $400 in cash to keep. Usually, as one would expect, the person receiving the money will begin to cry and need to hug the giver. And usually it doesn't hit me that hard. For some reason when a young lady named Elizabeth Brannock realized she was the recipient, and began to break down, it hit me hard enough to break me. And I love it when a story can do that. You could see a relief valve open, if just slightly, to release some of the stress that pain and suffering from a person's situations can bring. I didn't feel that strong emotion at the time I captured it on disc that day, but when you sequester yourself in the editing room, and you put that moment into the context of the story you are crafting, you realize the power of our profession, and it is powerful.

I couldn't choose a more satisfying vocation.